CII to adopt 10 ITIs

"Though maximum investments have occurred in 2007, West Bengal is facing a huge shortage of skilled and semi skilled labour", Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of West Bengal told Sandipan Chakravortty, chairman of the CII eastern region (CII-ER), at a meeting attended also by Mukul Somany, deputy chairman of CII-ER, and Ashish Jhunjhunwala, chairman of the CII West Bengal State Council, on May 20 at the Chief Minister's Office in Kolkata.

Bhattacharjee asked CII to initiate PPP models in ITI's, which could be replicated by others.

Chakravortty said in response that this year, CII-ER would be happy to adopt up to 10 ITI's in West Bengal. Bhattacharjee offered to support this initiative by asking his office to identify the ITI's which CII members could take up. The chief minister said while there existed huge demand for IT professionals, most IT graduates reportedly suffered from poor communication ability.

This issue had been taken up by the IT minister, who was organising soft skill training programmes for IT professionals, Bhattacharjee added. He stated that seven new steel plants were coming up in West Bengal but commensurate down stream steel industry was almost non-existent.

Bhattacharjee suggested that CII should organise a seminar with government companies, Durgapur Steel Plant, private companies, engineering associations, machine tools associations, etc. to promote this sector.